


Grace Can Be Found In Unlikely Places

by Cymry



Series: Grace [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: American Sign Language, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Discorporation (Good Omens), Forgiveness, M/M, Mute Bucky Barnes, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 10:19:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19227175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cymry/pseuds/Cymry
Summary: Assassins, and former-assassins, rarely get the chance to apologise to their victims. Rarely do their victims forgive. In the twenty-first century, Bucky Barnes arrives in London.





	Grace Can Be Found In Unlikely Places

In 1978 the Asset was in London. His target was a key figure in the Northern Irish peace process and Hydra wished a message to be sent. That was all the Asset needed to know.

It took forty minutes to break into the restaurant, locate the private dining room, and plant the Semtex. When the Asset detonated it at 13.00 hours the target was eliminated. Collateral damage included the target’s aide, an English MP, and two unknown males who unexpectedly got a table in the private room.

In the mission report, the unknown casualties were listed as _Unknown Male One - approximately 185 cm in height, slim build, dark red hair, snake tattoo on the right side of his face_ and _Unknown Male Two - approximately 180 cm in height, heavier build, blond curly hair_. As it was acceptable collateral damage Hydra had no further interest and the Asset was returned to cryo without punishment.

***

In 1990 the Asset was in London. For now, he was working in a non-lethal role, tracking a target, learning his routine. He played the part of an American tourist. He wore blue jeans, carried a camera round his neck, and concealed weapons under his coat. He smiled and laughed like in the films Hydra had shown him on grainy tapes. The Asset was good at playing at being an American.

In St. James’ Park, he pretended to enjoy the view. His target was feeding the ducks with a man the handler in his earpiece identified as being from the Argentine Embassy. A woman two benches down was pretending to read a paperback, and there were two men heading-

He _knew_ them.

“ _Soldat_ ,” said his handler in his ear.

A man in sunglasses, slim build and dark red hair, and a man dressed in a pale suit, heavier build, and bright blond curls. But no one had survived the restaurant blast. They’d been less than six feet from Semtex, close enough to be _vaporised_.

His handler was speaking and the Asset absently took out the earpiece. He was Hydra’s best weapon. No one could escape. If they did then the punishment would be severe. The Asset lurched to his feet. He would follow these men. He would find out how they survived - if the target had survived.

***

“No one’s going to notice anything out of the ordinary, angel,” hissed Crowley. His hiss was really rather impressive. “It’s _reality_ , and he’ll do what he likes to it. Whether he knows it or not.”

“And when does it turn up? The dog?”

“Should-” said Crowley before he was interrupted by a man lunging out of the bushes, combat knife raised, glint of shiny metal between glove and sleeve. Then just as suddenly he was gone, a small armoury falling to the path with metallic ringing noises.

“Goodness,” said the angel. “Was that one of yours?”

“No.” Crowley nudged the knife with a toe. The steel was blackened to hide the shine, old ways sometimes still being the best. “Where’d you send him anyway?”

“Exactly where he came from,” said Aziraphale primly.

***

The Asset lost his balance, turned the fall into a roll and came up onto his feet. From the sudden loss of weight, he could tell that his concealed weapons were gone, and from the different air, he knew he wasn’t in London. From the rooftop of this square building, he could see a bridge and, across the river, there were skyscrapers. New York, looking across at Manhattan from…

Hydra expected its Asset not to speak out of turn. Disobeying meant pain. But still, the Asset’s mouth shaped the word Brooklyn.

Despite the number of Hydra agents in America it still took them six months to find him. They’d been sidetracked by a multi-nation nuclear exchange that had fizzled out just as quickly as it had threatened and when it had passed the Asset had buried himself deeply. But when the agents finally brought him in the punishment was severe.

***

The Asset could not have known it, but as he was dragged - bleeding, hurting, and blank - into cyro, a demon and an angel were drinking together in a flat in Mayfair.

“You know,” said Aziraphale, wine glass cradled in one hand, “I’ve always thought it their most admirable trait.”

“Who?” said Crowley. He had his sunglasses off and his eyes gleamed in the low light. Through the windows, the twilight seeped in with the London noise.

“People. The way that they just go about their business despite,” Aziraphale flapped his free hand, “car crashes, exploding restaurants, that sort of thing.”

“I remember that.” Crowley sighed. “Discorportation by fire is just embarrassing.”

“As a demon, I suppose fire is rather your element, my dear.”

“Pity shrapnel isn’t. Turn up with most of a table and someone else’s femur lodged in your chest and you get a lot of questions. There any more of that bottle left?”

Aziraphale groped for the bottle on the table and levered himself out of Crowley’s designer sofa. Crowley held out his glass and together they managed to get it filled.

“Least all the questions about the femur meant they didn’t think to ask who I was with,” continued Crowley.

“Oh?”

“Well I wasn’t going to shop you in to Below, was I?”

“Thank you. Visiting it once was quite enough. You’re much better off up here.”

“With you?”

Crowley’s eyes were a golden ring surrounding huge, black pupils. Demons had the kind of eyes you could fall into but not to the kind of place you wished to go. Unless they were Crowley’s eyes.

“Yes,” said Aziraphale, “I suppose so.”

He turned suddenly all too aware of Crowley’s gaze.

“I haven’t been here in such a long time. Your plants look nice.”

“Angel-”

“Is that a lectern?”

“Aziraphale.”

“It almost looks like the one from-”

Crowley’s skin was warm and dry and not unpleasantly so. Aziraphale knew this because Crowley had pressed his chin into the crook of his neck. His hands met over Aziraphale’s soft middle.

“It’s the one from 1941.” Crowley’s breath made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. “From when I had to rescue you and those bloody books of yours. On consecrated ground.”

Crowley’s mouth was even warmer. Shivers ran up Aziraphale spine, to the place where his wings were folded away.

“I suppose,” said Aziraphale, once he had his voice back, “after six thousand years even I can catch up.”

***

In the twenty-first century, Bucky Barnes was in London. AIM agents had unearthed a Cold War cache of Hydra tech and somehow got it running. The Avengers had been dispatched as part of a joint task force and arrived just as AIM appeared in central London. While the Avengers were dealing with that, Bucky Barnes was sat on the Quinjet ramp having a panic attack.

It wasn't watching the robots moving across the London streets. They were big - Soviet brutalist architecture on three crab-like legs - but he’d seen them before. Probably Siberia. Probably a test case: the Winter Soldier vs. robot. He got faint flashes of memory - diesel and copper taste in his mouth and the weight of a grenade in his fist - but that wasn’t what drove him out of the Quinjet. That was Steve getting clipped by a robot’s arm and making the same noise he did on the Insight Carrier.

Then once Bucky had ridden out the panic attack - noise of his metal fist on Steve’s face echoing round his head - a journalist managed to slither past the cordon.

“James Barnes? Winter Soldier?”

Bucky stared at the approaching journalist, at phone held out in one hand, microphone attachment in the other. He knew what he was recording - a man who should’ve shaved two days ago and cut his hair long before that, a man with hollowed out eyes and a metal arm. Captain America’s sweetheart back from the dead. And so he got up and walked away. The New York press understood that Bucky Barnes was not to be bothered. Punishment would definitely be banishment from the Avengers press events and might include a bonus like Captain America crushing your camera with his bare hands. It might have stopped them if they knew Bucky couldn’t talk to them anyway. But everyone knew about the _brainwashing_ and the _cryofreeze_ and the _torture_ and Bucky didn’t need to add ( _selective mutism, panic attacks, touch issues, food issues, etc etc_ ) more to the pile. He already got more pitying looks than he could handle.

He escaped the police cordon by jumping over a fence, ducking through a building, and walking through a park. He’d been to London in his first year of freedom, fleeing Steve and his bad memories. The Asset had been to London, the old Bucky as well.

Sometimes he played a game with himself: thinking of good and bad memories that could have happened in a place. During the war, he could have taken Steve to some billet somewhere to fuck. The Asset could have slit someone’s throat in an alleyway. Maybe he’d just walked through the park on a day like this waiting for his sweetheart.

His memories were still uneven, heavy on the blood and violence. At first, he didn’t recognise the couple on the bench ahead of him. Then the redhead chucked his fella under his chin and there was a snake tattoo on the side of his face.

Bucky Barnes stood in the park shaking mutely while his brain disgorged more memories, heavy with the smell of smoke and ash. At least he finally knew how he’d managed his one escape.

He was drawing a lot of attention shaking in his Avengers uniform and the two fellas - _that Bucky had tried to kill_ \- were leaving. He’d end up on YouTube later for how he’d vaulted neatly over the park fence, but all he thought about was following the one blond head and one redhead.

He didn’t know what you were meant to do when you met someone you thought you blew up. He’d tried to kill Steve ( _forgave him_ ), Natasha ( _shrugged it off as part of the spy game_ ), and Nick Fury ( _said nothing_ ). None of these were the same and not a single answer had occurred to him by the time Unknown Male One and Two entered a bookshop and locked the door behind them.

Neither Bucky or the Asset got called in to deal with magic. Hydra had other assets for that and currently, Bucky couldn’t even handle the monitors. But they were both good with locks and this wasn’t even a particularly good one.

Books were everywhere inside, piled up on tables and on shelves, displayed in cabinets. There was a light on in another room and music. Bucky took two cautious steps further in. They let him have one knife for peace of mind, but even if that got magiced away, he still had-

“My word.” The blond man had risen from behind the counter, bottle cradled in one arm. “Um. Crowley?”

The other one, Crowley, appeared from between two shelves that Bucky knew had been a dead end. There was a half-empty glass of wine in his hand but no visible weapon.

“Were you expecting extra company, Aziraphale?”

“Oh, Crowley,” said Aziraphale. Bucky flinched away from those sad, pale eyes. “Look at his _mind_.”

“What’d I tell you, angel,” said Crowley. He drained his glass. “There’s nothing I can do that’s worse than what they do to each other.”

There was a neat little sequence of signs for ‘ _can’t talk, can hear_ ’ and there was the makeshift one Bucky used on those rare occasions he was left with strangers without any of the other Avengers. He touched his mouth and shook his head, then touched his ear and nodded.

“Thought you weren’t much of a talker,” said Crowley.

Not anymore, Bucky thought, and he was absolutely shocked to hear the words fall out of his mouth. After so long of speaking nothing but the occasional sentence to Steve and Natalia, his voice was a disused screech.

“Would you like to sit down?” said Aziraphale kindly and suddenly there was a chair. Magic.

“So what did you want?” said Crowley watching Bucky sit. He could tell even through the sunglasses.

“I killed you,” he croaked out, sounding like rusted hinges. But he had to get it out while he still could. “While I was brainwashed. Then I saw you before afterwards. Ended up in New York.”

“Oh, so I sent you somewhere nice after all.”

“He was going to kill us, angel.”

“Yes,” said Bucky.

He didn’t know what else to say. Every single one of the Asset’s murders had been replayed in his sleep, but those victims were dead. He hadn’t expected to meet any.

“I’m sorry,” he said. First sign he’d learnt, a fist circling his chest. He got a lot of use out of it. “It was my hands.”

That set off a flurry of conversation. They weren’t to know that Zola’s knock-off serum had enhanced Bucky’s hearing, but it was full of words like _discorporation_ and _ineffable_. So Bucky sat quietly thinking about how tired he was. He had no right to be. Too broken to go against robots, too broken to monitor.

“That was brave of you to come here and say that,” said Aziraphale. The light from outside caught the tips of his blond hair like a halo. It made the golden ring on his finger gleam. “I forgive you.”

The words hit Bucky like an electric shock, lighting up the maze of arteries and veins inside him. At his side, the arm shifted and buzzed. Goosebumps rose on his skin. Everything was light.

***

“Tone it down, angel,” said Crowley, patting down his jacket. Grey smoke rose from it.

“Sorry, my dear.”

Crowley groped on the desk for a blank piece of paper and glared at it. It burst into flames and he stopped smouldering.

“I’d have told him to get his head down personally. Maybe get a haircut.”

The Winter Soldier - Crowley was _au fait_ with Google - was shivering in the aftermath of divine forgiveness. Sometimes Crowley got a little of it when he looked at Aziraphale, like the silver light of heaven but… better. Familiar. Home-like. Barnes had gotten a big dose of it.

“Not making him forget then?”

“It’ll be like he had a lovely dream,” said the angel, confidently, “Off you go, young man.” He waved a hand and the soldier mechanically got to his feet and walked out of the suddenly unlocked door.

“Superheroes,” said Crowley. “Might have them crawling round here if they smell something dodgy. Touching things. Buying books.”

Aziraphale shuddered delicately.

“I suppose it’s worth it for a good deed.”

“Angel.”

“Sorry.”

Crowley shrugged it off.

“You know, my dear,” said Aziraphale, giving him one of those fond looks, “my life would be awfully dull without you in it. I hope I never forget you.”

His manicured hand was making its way towards Crowley so naturally, he thwarted the angel by taking it and pressing a kiss to the palm.

***

Steve found Bucky in St. James’ Park, watching the ducks. He stood out in the Kevlar and with his metal arm gleaming, and because he was shaking even in the summer sunshine.

“There you are.”

Bucky jumped half off the bench before he recognised Steve.

_Sorry, Steve,_ said his hands. Steve had his own sign, a flick of Bucky’s right hand over his heart towards the star on his arm. These days, when he could stand the touch, he got Steve to paint it over in white enamel paint.

“No, I’m sorry, Buck.” Bucky’s name from Steve’s hand was a flat palm over his own heart. He made a habit of signing as he spoke to Bucky, for practice mostly. Also because he didn’t want his fella to feel so isolated. “You okay?”

His hand went to his forehead then twisted out to make the palm face forward.

_I don’t know_.

Even his hands were shaking. Hydra had made steady hands a priority and they made lessons stick. Steve had forced himself to read the files.

“Did something happen?”

_I don’t know_. “I thought,” said Bucky simultaneously, “I saw people I killed.”

“Like a…”

Learning ASL with Bucky meant a lot more than _hello_ , _goodbye_ , and _what’s the weather like_ ? The word _hallucination_ for example.

“No.” Bucky did the sign for _fine_ , thumb jabbing lightly against his chest, then the one for _tired_.

For a moment Steve thought he saw white light in Bucky’s eyes, flickering under his skin.

“Are you-”

_Fine_ , came the sign, harder and harder. _Fine, fine, fine._

“Okay, okay. I believe you.” He tried to smile reassuringly. “You ready to go home?”

He held out his hand palm-up. Bucky’s returning touch was a mere brush of fingertips, but it was enough. Just a few years ago, he’d thought Bucky was dead, his body long lost in the Alps. Even a little touch was better than that.

***

There were too many people in the Quinjet so Bucky’s voice went away again. He barely signed anything either. His head and chest felt strange like they were shaking along with his hands and legs.

“You cold, Buck?”

Bucky had no idea, but he let Steve give him a blanket and drape it around him (carefully with no touching). Even finishing his nutrient pack - replacement to Hydra IV nutrition - didn’t solve the problem. It was time to attempt sleep.

Of all the things that people do Bucky found sleep the hardest. Sleep was when the nightmares came out, all the bloodsoaked deeds creeping into the light. His personal best for sleep - before the usual screaming thrash upwards in consciousness - was two-and-a-half hours. The old Bucky had liked sleep, had liked putting his body next to Steve’s in ways that Bucky couldn’t these days.

He lay on the Quinjet’s stretcher, buckling one restraint loosely across his waist. Steve sat on the floor next to him. He’d missed a spot when he’d washed his face - a smudge of building dust just in front of his ear like a tattoo.

_Steve_ , he signed, _wake?_

He couldn’t lie next to Steve and he couldn’t go to bed with him, but Steve looked so happy just to be on hand to wake him from nightmares.

“I promise.”

Promise was an index finger on his lips, then a flat hand on his left fist. From Steve Rogers it was gold, enough for Bucky to close his eyes.

***

Bucky dreamt of a garden. He walked naked through lush vegetation and flowers like vast jewels. Animals watched him go by with no fear, deer and lions and bright birds. When the furniture started to appear, he wasn’t too concerned. He remembered nonsense dreams were normal dreams that normal people had.

There was a shiny wooden desk, a huge throne of a chair, a statue of an angel and a demon entwined. And then there was the bed, piled high with soft-looking pillows. An angel with a painfully bright halo lay there on his stomach, a snake draped over his back and shoulders.

“You gave him too much, angel,” said the snake. He rubbed his head against the angel’s cheek. “Didn’t I say?”

“Well, I haven’t given anyone Forgiveness in a while.” Bucky couldn’t see the angel’s face in the glare, but his tone was sheepish. “It should wear off.”

“Getting your head down solves a lot of problems,” said the snake. He started to unwind, travelling down the angel’s plain white robe between his white wings.

“I think the poor boy slept through enough of a century already.”

“Well, I can restrain myself. Unlike some occult-”

“Ahem.”

“Ethereal beings I could mention.”

“I don’t recall you using too much restraint here.” The snake slid down the angel’s hip and down between his thighs. “Oh! You old serpent.”

***

Bucky struggled away from the sudden touch and Steve immediately took his hand off his shoulder. The first thing he noticed was the quiet. No Quinjet engines or Avengers conversation.

“Sorry, Buck, I had to wake you up.” Steve was always happy when Bucky was around for some reason. Right now, he looked like he was going to cry he was so happy. He nodded towards the lowered ramp. “We’re home.”

_New York?_ he signed once he’d untangled his hands from his blanket.

“Just over six hours,” said Steve. “You slept through the flight and the landing.”

_Bad dream?_

“Not a peep. You slept like a log.”

Bucky worked his jaw, opened and closed his hands without saying anything. His head felt clear, his shoulders relaxed. He wondered if this was a little like how the old Bucky had felt.

“You want something more to eat?”

Bucky made the seesaw gesture that meant _maybe_ and Steve undid the lap band for him. God, he was so _happy_ over sleep. Steve was so happy over this broken body and walking with him down into the tower without even touching. So happy that Bucky was there.

He snatched at Steve’s wrist with his right hand before he lost his nerve. What little he had these days. He saw Steve stiffen and - wonderfully, miraculously - he felt it too under his hand, Steve’s pulse speeding up.

“Bucky?”

Touching Steve was just as hard as sleep. On the Insight Carrier he’d…

He crept his fingers down into the warm length of Steve’s palm, down to his fingers and all he had to do was curl them almost like a fist. Blood roared in his ears. Just as slowly, Steve’s fingers curled too. Bucky had forgotten how warm Steve ran.

“You’re okay?” he said. His voice was scratchy like he was going to cry for real in just a second.

He nodded. One thing at a time. So he held up his metal hand, ring and middle finger folded down.

“Love you too, Buck.” Steve didn’t sign back, but he gently - so very gently - squeezed his hand in return. It was like being forgiven all over again.

**Author's Note:**

> So this was the product of an odd train of thought about what would happen if someone thought they'd killed Crowley or Aziraphale. I hope you've enjoyed reading it.


End file.
